Agrigators Enterprises Pvt Ltd, which runs animal nutrition and healthcare firm eFeed, on Wednesday said it has raised seed funding of $1 million (around Rs 8.2 crore) from venture capital firm Omnivore.
Omnivore’s investment in the Pune-based platform was made through its OmniX Bio, an initiative launched to back early-stage startups across agrifood life sciences.
The fresh proceeds will be deployed by eFeed to strengthen its research and development operations, expand its farmer network, and ramp up hiring.
“By empowering farmers with localized and customized feed advisory supplemented by our premixes, eFeed is improving cattle health, milk output, and farmer incomes while lowering reliance on expensive compound feed and medicines,” said Kumar Ranjan, co-founder and chief executive at eFeed.
eFeed was founded by Ranjan, Ravi Chauhan and Ankit Patel in 2021. It claims to disrupt the animal nutrition and health industry in India which is valued at about $14 billion.
The company offers nutritional supplements for livestock, and claims that these can improve overall cattle health and help increase milk yield. Some of the offerings include customized ration balancing, considering the location of the cattle and available raw materials for feeding, and connecting veterinary doctors to cattle farmers for easy access to medical services.
OmniX Bio set up in December 2021, is a programme aimed at supporting entrepreneurs who are working in the fields of agricultural biotechnology, novel farming systems, bioenergy and biomaterials, as well as innovative foods, including alternative protein.
Among its earlier investments, Omnivore invested in Agricultural biotechnology startup BioPrime AgriSolutions Pvt. Ltd, in October, along with Inflexor Ventures, in the firm’s pre-Series A fundraise cumulatively valued around Rs 9 crore.
The VC firm also invested in Insect biotech startup Loopworm’s seed round, in August 2022. The round was co-led by Omnivore and WaterBridge Ventures, with participation from Titan Capital and angel investors.